Dr. Chirikjian is a Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the University Of Georgetown Medical Center. Jack is also the Founder and current Director of the Georgetown University Biotechnology Program which is a masters-level program that prepares students for careers in bioscience. The program has trained over 300 master-level students in the past five years. In addition to his academic career, Dr. Chirikjian is an accomplished entrepreneur who has founded several biotechnology companies including Bethesda Research Laboratories, BRL Inc./ LTI Inc./Invitrogen, Oncor, Inc., Trevigen, Inc. Edvotek (a bioscience education company) and several others.

Dr. Chirikjian received his B.S., M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from Rutgers University in New Jersey. He performed his postdoctoral studies at Princeton University before joining the faculty in the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Georgetown Medical Center. He has authored over 45 scientific publications and is a recognized expert in biotechnology curriculum development and teaching.

Thomas Clarke

Mr. Clarke is the chairman and chief executive officer of TheStreet.com. He joined TheStreet.com in October 1999 as president and chief operating officer and was appointed chief executive officer and made a director of the Company in November 1999. In October 2001, Mr. Clarke was appointed chairman of the Board. From 1984 through 1998, Mr. Clarke served in several capacities at Technimetrics, Inc. (now part of Thomson Financial), most recently as chief executive. During his tenure, he significantly enhanced the value of Technimetrics, Inc., culminating in its sale to The Thomson Corporation in 1998. Mr. Clarke is a business information adviser for Plum Holdings L.P., a venture capital fund based in Philadelphia that focuses on early-stage media companies.

Ivar Giaevar, Ph.D.

Ivar Giaver is internationally known for his pioneering studies in superconductivity which led to the landmark discovery of tunneling in superconductors and for which he received the 1973 Nobel Prize in physics. Since 1988 he has been the Institute Professor of Physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

Dr. Giaever was born in Norway in 1928 and received the degree of Mechanical Engineering from the Norwegian Institute of Technology in 1952. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1956 and received the Ph.D. in theoretical physics in 1964 from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute while working at General Electric. In 1970 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship and used it to study biophysics at Cambridge University. He served as an adjunct professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, in 1975 and as a visiting professor at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in La Jolla. In 1988 he was Professor-at-Large at the University of Oslo. In addition to his academic duties he is also president of Applied Biophysics Inc., a small company that is developing and exploring applications of electric cell-substrate impedance sensor (ECIS). His current interest are focused on the behavior of organic molecules at solid surfaces and the interaction of cells with surfaces.

Dr. Giaever is a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the United States National Academy of Engineering, the Norwegian Academy of Science, the Swedish Academy of Engineering and is an honorary member of the Norwegian Academy of Technology.

He was awarded the very prestigious Oliver E. Buckley prize in 1965 and in 1974 received the Vladimir K. Zworykin Award from the National Academy of Engineering.

Mary J.C. Hendrix, Ph.D.

Dr. Hendrix received her B.S. degree in Biology/Pre-Med from Shepherd College (now called Shepherd University) in 1974, her PhD. in Anatomy from George Washington University in 1977, and an honorary DSc. in 1996 from Shepherd College. Dr. Hendrix was an NIH Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology from 1977 to 1980; Assistant, Associate and Professor (and Associate Head) at the University of Arizona from 1980-1993 and served as an Arizona Disease Control Research Commissioner from 1985 to 1994. She was the Immuno-US Endowed Professor and Director of the Pediatric Research Institute, St. Louis University School of Medicine and Cardinal Glennon Children´s Hospital from 1994-1996, prior to joining the faculty of The University of Iowa as the Leading Woman Scientist Endowment Recipient and Head of the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology in June 1996. She also served as the Kate Daum Research Professor, and Associate Director of Basic Research and Deputy Director for The Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center at The University of Iowa, for the Roy J. and Lucille A. Carver College of Medicine from 1996-2004.

Currently, she serves as President and Scientific Director for the Children's Memorial Research Center and Professor of Pediatrics, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

She is the US Editor of Pathology Oncology Research, and Member of the Editorial Boards of Clinical Cancer Research, Developmental Dynamics, Cancer Biology and Therapy; Journal of Cellular Biochemistry, Cancer Research, and the American Journal of Pathology.

She is the Past-President of FASEB (Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology) consisting of over 70,000 members, making it the largest coalition of biomedical research societies in the United States. She also serves on the National Advisory Council for the Human Genome Research Institute, the Annenberg Center for Health Sciences, and the National Cancer Institute Board of Scientific Advisors, on the Board of Directors for the Metastasis Research Society, Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R), and the Society for Regenerative Medicine and Stem Cell Biology, and as the Co-Director of the Virtual Naval Hospital Program, which addresses the medical education needs of service personnel at remote sites. Dr. Hendrix is the immediate Past-President of the Association of Anatomy, Cell Biology, and Neurobiology Chairpersons (AACBNC). She has over 180 publications in biomedical research, including her recently edited book on Maspin, a novel serine protease inhibitor, and is the recipient of a MERIT Award from the National Cancer Institute. She is also the 2004 Australian Society for Medical Research Lecturer and Medal Recipient for research and advocacy.

George Kennedy

George D. Kennedy is retired Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Mallinckrodt Group, Inc., and International Minerals and Chemicals, both Fortune 250 companies. He is past director of Kemper Insurance, Brunswick, and several other public and private companies. George is currently a Director of Children´s Memorial Hospital, the Chicago Symphony and Clark Art Institute. Member, Advisory Board, High Peaks Venture Partners, co-founder and Managing Partner at The Berkshires Capital Investors. George is a graduate of Williams College.

Richard John Roberts, Ph.D.

Molecular biologist, the winner, with Phillip A. Sharp, of the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his independent discovery of "split genes."

Roberts received a Ph.D. in organic chemistry from the University of Sheffield, Eng., in 1968. After postdoctoral research at Harvard University, he took a post at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York in 1972. In 1992 he joined New England Biolabs, a biotechnology firm.

In 1977 Roberts and a team including Thomas Broker, Louise Chow, and Richard Gelinas established that the genes of the adenovirus--one of the viruses that cause the common cold--are discontinuous: the segments of DNA that code for proteins are interrupted by lengthy stretches of DNA that do not contain genetic information. The coding segments are called exons; the noncoding ones are called introns. A research team working under Sharp at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology produced the same finding that same year. Previously, based on studies of bacterial DNA, biologists believed that genes consisted of unbroken stretches of DNA, all of which encoded protein structure. It has since been established that the discontinuous gene structure discovered by Roberts and Sharp is the most common structure found in higher organisms (eukaryotes). In addition to having important implications for the study of genetic diseases, this structure is believed to drive evolution by allowing information from different parts of the gene to be brought together in new combinations.